April 25, 2011

Family,

So this week was HOLY WEEK, or I suppose in easier words..the events leading up to the most important thing that happened in the history of the world about 2,000 years ago.
Last year I was in my hardest area, Marinduque where people were whipped and crucified and reinacted the Crucifixion and Atonement of Jesus Christ...hardly anything reverent or respectful, but that's another story.. Haha it's funny to see where I am at right now. We are in one of the richest cities in the Philippines and I'm with my best friend in the mission and we killed it this week. Besides the fact that almost NO ONE was outside haha and Good Friday was really tough to try and find people to teach we had a great week. This week we are baptizing a 25 year old young lady named Gem, she's studying in Maynila to become a Lawyer and she's so awesome! She's the girlfriend of the Ward Mission Leader here in Canlubang and it's been such an awesome time teaching here the gospel...because not only is she super intelligent...but she doesn't understand the deep tagalog words we use haha funny huh? So she prefers we teach in english...to be honest it's actually really hard..to teach in tagalog for almost 2 years and then be expected to rememeber everything you're suppose to say I sounded like I've never spoken the language first and had to substitute tagalog for a few words I couldn't remember for the life of me...oh no what am I gonna do when I get home?
So I talked to Bishop and I found out when my home coming talk is...it will be on the 24th of July...6 days after I get home...and I expect a lot of my mission friends to be there.. if not for sure Elder Mace will be... I am completely stoked! We are killing it here in Canlubang and I really think this will be and should me my most productive area. This week has been sad as well...we had to say good bye to a few investigators. Sister Norma, I really had high hopes for her she is the best friend of a SUPER active family in the ward and she's been taught by numerous missionaries and her daughter Josh is a member since she was 16...haha that's ironic... and even though we taught some really good lessons, she won't read she won't ask God if it's true and when she told us she was done she basically just said. "I was born a catholic and i will die a catholic."..which is unfortunately something I hear a lot. I tried to explain here that we aren't here to tell her Catholicism is false...we want you to keep all the truth of you have and love...what we WANT you to do is read this book and pray about it and Joseph Smith.but people won't do that and will never come to know the happiness that i have in my life and to be honest It's not a pride thing but it kills me, I literally feel pain for them and it makes me want to shed tears for just them not trying... well this week it happened twice. The other one was a man named Santos, he was a stud and was really interested in reading the bible and use to do missionary service a few times in Manila, at any rate we taught him and he was reading the book of mormon...but what had happen was that his Pastor came over and told him that he needs to stop listening to us because he is his pastor and therefore has stewardship over him or something? Something to the point that he is the pastors sheep and therefor must listen to him...Again I just felt sorrow for the man who wasn't willing to find out for himself..I didn't spit out any bitter phrase or ridicule them, I just humbly bore my testimony that i know this would really bless their lives if they would just really give it a chance...but to no avail they blindly closed their eyes to the thing that has brought me the most joy in my life. But i cannot stay upset I'm having the time of my life here. This week Burt and Rose worked with us to pass their marriage license..if you don't rememeber they are the couple that had a serious trial in their lives because Bert was injured at work and of course his company here didn't come through and pay for anything so they have been super poor (mahirap?) and we had to tell him he had to get married before they were baptized...and of course the Filipino Government has made it cost quite a bit of money to even search in the records of non married people to see if they've had a marriage before (There is no divorce here kasi) So we told them and basically told them they can pay however much they can and Elder Mace and I will take care of the rest (that's kinda why I've been taking out a lot of $ and we live ina place with BURGER KING...I know now that you all understand haha..) So without question they gave a pretty good ammount...and then Bert said one of the most faithful and inspired things i've ever heard...he handed over quite a bit of money that i wasn't expecting and when his wife saw it she said...but you need to make sure you buy medicine you jsut got out of the hospital and have certain medication.. and he replied that's fine I'll just buy the cheap generic medication and pray alot the Lord is faithful and will support me...I have absolutely NO DOUBT that the Lord will...You may not completely understand because I am horrible at explaining but this man used to give missionaries a lot of trash, he would listen in on lessons and be very philosophical, he was a lush, he didn't care for his wife, their relationship was suffering, he only cared about himself...that was until the accident ahppened and really changed his life and now he is ashamed of the things he does and always says that was his past life..he's amazing...I cannot wait to baptize em...it will be my second family the Lord has blessed me with! It is a testiment to me that whatever walk of life that we come from it's not important, what ever we have done or may do...we can change and become better. I suppose that's what the Lord wanted me to learn on my mission...Forgiveness is amazing and constant improvement is perfection. I'm exhausted from playing so much basketball earlier and jamming in a study I think I'm gonna go home and go sleep I'm SO TIRED.